Hong Kong Polytechnic University moves 38,500 staff and students to the cloud, representing one of Asia’s biggest Office 365 education deployments
Hong Kong, October 15, 2012 – Since its launch over a year ago, Office 365 has proven to be a big hit among large and small companies alike. Globally, Office 365 is now offered in 88 markets and 32 languages. In Hong Kong, the Office 365 new customer base has grown by nearly 260 percent since launch last June. More than 90 percent of new customers come from the small- and mid-size business segment, and close to 70 percent began using the cloud with Exchange Online. Currently more than 120 partners are re-selling Office 365 in Hong Kong, contributing to the 42,000-strong partner ecosystem worldwide, 10 times the size of Google’s partner ecosystem for Google Apps.
Hong Kong education sector gains business edge
Marking the first anniversary of Office 365, Microsoft is bringing the benefits of Office 365 to students, teachers and faculty with the launch of Office for education. Office 365 for education brings all the familiarity of Office — Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote — and combines it with Microsoft Lync, SharePoint and Exchange to deliver a world-class communication and collaboration solution for educational institutions in Hong Kong.
“Putting the world’s best technology in the hands of our students and teachers is critical to improving educational outcomes and making sure students are prepared for university and their careers,” says David Hooper, Information Worker Business Group Lead of Microsoft Hong Kong. “With schools’ ever-tightening budgets, Office 365 for education enables them to deploy new and innovative technology in the cloud that will modernize teaching and learning practices, at no cost for the basic Office 365 suite and only a minimal cost for an advanced suite which additionally includes Office Professional Plus and unlimited email storage.”
Office 365 enables PolyU to save over HK$2M per annum and pursue environmental sustainability
In urgent need of a modern IT application solution after years of rapid growth in its student and staff population, Hong Kong’s venerable Polytechnic University (PolyU) selected Office 365 for education to unify and streamline how it shares and transfers its information and knowledge assets, stay abreast of the latest mobile market trends and move the campus toward greater environmental sustainability.
“Historically PolyU had acquired four email services, which were complex and costly to manage. While our legacy email platform, Novell GroupWise®, was functionally rich, it wasn’t conducive to on-boarding new staff and students as it took too long to learn, meaning a more intuitive user interface was needed. There was a pressing need for the implementation of a new unified email messaging platform to replace these four systems,” says Mr. Gerrit Bahlman, Director of Information Technology, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
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| (From left to right) Mr. Gerrit Bahlman, Director of Information Technology, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University; David Hooper, Information Worker Business Group Lead of Microsoft Hong Kong |
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PolyU opted for Office 365 for education, a next-generation communication and collaboration service that delivers the power of cloud productivity, offering them better security, lower costs, greater mobility with multiple devices, anywhere access to class assignments, email and calendars, and – most importantly – a more connected and greener knowledge-based campus.
“Security and privacy are often focal points in considering the cloud, and, after careful review of Microsoft’s SLAs, security and privacy policies, PolyU trusted in the integrity of Microsoft. Given the global scale of Microsoft and the millions of customers they already support, between PolyU and Microsoft, I’d bet my bottom dollar on Microsoft being more secure. PolyU benefited notably from the help of Microsoft’s Premier Support Services in overcoming security and technical concerns,” adds Mr. Bahlman.
“PolyU has seen a positive return from using Office 365 for education as it will save over HK$2 million per annum in terms of server hardware space and less downtime, software and administrative time – freeing up resources that can be redeployed to serve the needs of other deserving IT projects,” adds Mr. Bahlman.
Microsoft is also contributing to PolyU’s strategic vision of moving the campus towards greater sustainability,” says Mr. Bahlman. “In conjunction with the managed printer project, the communication and collaboration brought by Office 365 for education will contribute to a resulting 30-40% saving in the reduction of printing and thus will equate to a significantly reduced carbon footprint.”
Implementation of Office 365 for education at PolyU is taking place in two phases. First, the migration of 6,500 staff to Office 365 Exchange Online email and calendaring services provides access to a substantial 25GB mailbox, greater collaboration capabilities, and Outlook’s more intuitive user interface. The next phase will deploy Office 365 for education to all 32,000 students by the first quarter of 2013, creating a common platform that delivers the same user experience to all students and faculty. As Exchange Online and ActiveSync bring increased mobility, PolyU is also planning the future migration to Lync and SharePoint Online in order to meet the growing requirements for knowledge management and cope with the trend toward social networking.
Fung Kai Innovative School uses Office 365 to realize ‘student-centered’ learning
Apart from tertiary institutions, primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong are also gaining cloud productivity from this Office 365 for education offering. Fung Kai Innovative School is another early adopter. Built with Office 365 for education, Fung Kai Innovative School has developed and is operating a robust end-to-end interactive e-learning portal with SharePoint Online to meet both teaching and learning needs and provide seamless communication and collaboration among teachers and students, thus better fulfilling the vision of its ‘student-centered’ philosophy.
“Fung Kai Innovative School takes advantage of Lync Online for video and web conferencing that simplifies administration and enables exchanges with other schools,” said Ma Siu Leung, Supervisor, Fung Kai Innovative School. “This e-learning model sets a blueprint for other Fung Kai schools under the same group to embrace the next-generation e-learning model on their own terms.”
“Whether small or large, local or global, educational or entrepreneurial, there is an Office 365 right for everybody,” adds David Hooper. “The magic of the service is in its flexibility, familiarity and breadth of options.”
For more information on Office 365 and Office 365 for education, visit www.office365.com.
Appendix – Plans for Office 365 for education
| A2 Free for academic institutions |
A3 Students: USD2.50 per user/month Faculty and staff: USD4.50 per user/month |
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Everything in A2, plus:
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| All plans also include: Financially-backed 99.9 availability Live 24×7 customer phone support for advanced IT issues Single sign-on using latest federation technology |
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